


touch(starved)

by bistormtrooper (SilverSie)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Light Angst, Pining, Sharing a Bed, The Force strikes again!, Touch-Starved, at least i THOUGHT the angst was light, op's fic tore my heart out but go off - Mads (2018)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-26
Updated: 2018-04-26
Packaged: 2019-04-28 02:41:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14439720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverSie/pseuds/bistormtrooper
Summary: She’d wondered if the Force would bring them back together somehow, part of her perhaps waited for it—But this…Not like this.For Reylo Week 2018Day 3: TOUCH





	touch(starved)

**Author's Note:**

> listen,,,,,, this was supposed to be just hurt/comfort and touchy/feely i'm sorry (there might be a continuation in the future)

 

Kylo Ren wakes suddenly and violently, torn from sleep by— _something_ —

His night terrors never ceased since that day in the throne room; he may be free from Snoke’s grasp and influence, but many nights he believes the nightmares would never end. That they were a permanent part of him, too ingrained. It doesn’t matter that nearly all of the subjects of his dreams are dead when he awakes. _Nearly_.

It is _something_ more than terror that jolts him from sleep now, though. Immediately he notices it is too quiet, the air too still— like he is in a bubble that exists separately from the rest of the galaxy—

_Something_ shifts next to him, and he turns his head. And freezes.

It’s Rey.

She is not plagued by night terrors. At least not tonight. She is facing him and curled in on herself, huddled like an animal burrowing for warmth, deep in sleep and the picture of serenity save for one fist clenched in front of her middle. As if it were accustomed to years of holding tightly onto something in her sleep. Kylo grants himself a moment to study her unguarded expression, her dark lashes and pink lips, hair spilling over her shoulders. He remembers one other time she allowed herself to look so defenseless, so open before him, hair drying by firelight even as her cheeks were newly dampened by fresh tears as she held out a hand—

Unthinkingly, he reaches out now. His hand is inches above her arm when he stops.

_Does she know I’m here? Does she—?_

His hand withdraws. _No_. She would not sleep so peacefully if she knew who it was that lay beside her. His stomach clenches painfully at the thought, some old ache echoes deep in his chest.

He returns to laying on his back, staring resolutely at the ceiling, turning neither toward or away from her. Try as he might to not think of the woman next to him, her proximity, to see anything but her, her image is burned into his mind as a brand into flesh, and with it the memory that it had conjured.

How so much of him wishes to return to that moment by her fire.

He clenches his eyes shut, willing the images away. He distances his mind from her, resisting the inexorable pull— and yet. In the stillness, he can hear her breathe. It is the only thing he can hear. It is the only thing that reaches him now, a steady gentle tide, and almost unbidden he latches onto it. He lets the sound carry him, slowing his own breathing to match her ebb and flow, and only then— finally— can he relax. It pulls at him, and he does not resist.

Desperate to sleep, he immerses himself in her ocean.

 

 

 

Rey is being warmed by sunlight.

Her nights are always cold, her blankets too few and too thin, and memories of a midnight desert echo across time and make them seem even colder.

_Now_ , though… now she feels comfortable, content. Something is radiating a gentle heat over her, and like the morning sun it draws her from sleep. But her eyes open to darkness. And when they adjust, she sees freckles and moles scattered across the expanse of a broad shoulder.

Her breath hitches. She doesn’t have to look to know, but she raises her head.

Ben Solo is sleeping next to her. His chest rises and falls in a soft rhythm, his face tilted towards her, his hair mussed and tossed across his pillow.

He’s beautiful. Peaceful.

He is so different from how she has ever seen him before.

Carefully, she lets out the breath she was holding. Gently, she lays her head back down. She’d wondered if the Force would bring them back together somehow, part of her perhaps waited for it— But this… Not like this.

This brought an ache to her chest. This felt like a far-off dream that even she wouldn’t allow herself, like some fantasy, a moment from some idyllic timeline.

It was unfair, that he could be so close and still so far. That she should long to reach for him across the bed, across the galaxy. That she should want to see him at all.

Her arm drags across the sheets, the backs of her fingers hover only close enough to feel more of his warmth. And he is _so warm_. He is like the sun.

Rey closes her eyes, at war with herself. When she opens them again, she reaches for him.

Her palm presses against his shoulder and the utter _relief_ that floods her at the contact brings tears to her eyes and makes her chest tight, her breath unsteady. She has to resist pressing against him completely, embracing him.

This is unfamiliar territory for her— since joining the Resistance she has only experienced friendly gestures, handshakes and hugs, claps on the back, and even all of those are new to her still—

This is something unknown that she craves so deeply it scares her. It makes her realize with startling clarity that she has starved in more ways than one. She trembles from the very thought, this sudden feeling, his warmth, the motion of his breathing. She doesn’t know what she’ll do if he wakes— panic, probably— but she doesn’t think on it. Her hand slides down, curling around his bicep. Her thumb brushes a line from one mole to another, connecting the two, and her gaze wanders across his collarbone, his chest. He is _covered_ in the dark flecks, far more than she, even as freckled by sun as she is. Where hers are faint and clustered, his are stark marks; a dot here and a dot there, as if someone took a handful of stars, shook them, and tossed them across his skin.

Her lips tingle with the desire to kiss each and every one of them.

Rey closes her eyes against that desire, draws an unsteady breath, but her hand doesn’t leave him, gently clutching his arm like an anchor, something to moor her— or him, perhaps, she isn’t sure—

Until he moves. His head shifts and she flinches, recoils as if burned. In the same moment her hand is caught in his suddenly, but not roughly.

“Wait,” Ben’s voice is deep and rough from sleep but _soft_ , a whisper, a plea. “Rey.”

Brown eyes meet hazel, and she doesn’t respond but she doesn’t try to retreat from him, either. _He knew I was here_.

Their joined hands, still poised in midair, move together to rest on the bed and she thinks that they moved on their own volition or perhaps were trapped together, caught in some gravity they couldn’t resist. And similarly, they entwine; not merely grasping but cradling, seeking.

Her eyes flick from where they touch back up to where he still watches her, unmoving.

“Just for—” He swallows heavily, continues, “Just for tonight.”

It is not an assertion, but an offer. She does nothing and his hand under hers tightens its hold almost imperceptibly.

With his next word, her chest tightens: “Please.”

This time, she is not strong enough to refuse him.

**Author's Note:**

> yell at me on [tumblr!](http://bistormtrooper.tumblr.com/)


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